


In the Love Light

by lori (zakhad)



Series: Captain and Counselor [17]
Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-20
Updated: 2009-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-04 17:01:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/32443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zakhad/pseuds/lori
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>a segment that didn't fit in another fic. AKA a vignette.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Love Light

~^~^~^~^~

Stars keep secrets as they wander indiscretely  
While the echoes of a song go drifting by  
We must be careful not to lose our way completely  
Or the magic that we seek here  
We can't be sure will be here

In the morning  
With the moon away  
And if in each other's arms  
Is where we're meant to stay

In the love light  
When our eyes have grown accustomed to the daylight  
We'll see what waits for us to share  
For all the things we've dreamed of in the moonlight  
Will be there

~ Sting

~^~^~^~^~

"We aren't going riding, we aren't going to Earth." Deanna smiled at a passing lieutenant. She smiled more frequently now than before I proposed to her, and for any reason. Almost as though she were looking for excuses to do it. "So where are you taking me?"

"You were supposed to guess."

"I can guess you're up to something. You're smug."

The holodeck date had become a monthly event, if not bi-monthly, and we took turns surprising each other. Deanna made certain it was different from horseback riding or other holodeck activities we did together; she took to dressing up for the occasion. This time, I'd planned something different than the usual restaurant or tour of some familiar place on Earth or Betazed.

"That's a very nice dress."

"Thank you," she said, glancing down at herself. She changed her wardrobe over time, and I'd noticed since she has been with me she wears longer skirts and looser outfits off-duty. This one featured a pattern of gold and green in a trellis pattern on an off-white background.

Coming around the last corner, we were confronted by a small group of people heading the opposite direction. One of them stopped. "Counselor, do you have a moment? I really need to -- "

"Shawn, I'm sorry, but this isn't a good time."

The young ensign stopped open-mouthed and glanced at me. I've found that remaining straight-faced and merely looking back at the junior officers when this sort of thing happened was usually enough to put an end to any potentially-uncomfortable situation. He turned back to Deanna, unphased.

"Um, I was just hoping, that if you had a few moments -- She said that I -- "

"This isn't a good time or place for this. I have an opening in the morning at eight hundred hours, that's the best I can do. Excuse me, please." Deanna stepped around the tow-headed ensign, who couldn't have been more than twenty.

"But -- "

Deanna winced, which the cadet didn't see, and turned around. "I'm sorry, Cadet, but I'm off duty and I have a prior commitment. First thing in the morning." Her iron 'commander's voice' came out, surprising both me and the ensign.

The thin shoulders slumped. "Yes, sir." He spun on his heel and wandered off.

"What a monster you are. The poor fellow obviously had a major crisis," I murmured.

She smiled cynically, raising an eyebrow. "He's twenty-one, and every girlfriend is the 'one and only.' He's on the third girlfriend since he came aboard, and every time he two-times she breaks it off and he's heartbroken."

"Of course. She was his one and only, why wouldn't he be heartbroken?" We resumed our leisurely stroll. "He'll also go blind if she denies him, and she's the most beautiful woman in the galaxy, and he really wasn't paying any attention to the girl in the too-small pink bikini in the pool, he just wanted to find out where she got the suit so he could get one for the one and only."

"I hope you never used any of those."

I smirked at the thought. "No, I was even more clueless than that, at that age. I suppose the 'going blind' line wouldn't work with you?"

"Have I ever given you a reason to try it?"

"Stop looking at me in that tone of voice in the corridor. I'll go blind."

She laughed at it, veering to bump shoulders. "You're terrible."

"Have I told you lately how beautiful you are?"

"Let me guess, the most beautiful woman -- "

" -- in the universe, and all the other universes parallel to ours, and in the alternate realities and. . . . You're supposed to tell me to shut up any time now. I've run out of alternates and parallels."

"I wanted to find out the true scope of my beauty," she said as the holodeck doors opened before us. "I was waiting for an actual count of just how many alternate and parallel universes in which I'm the most beautiful woman."

"Well, you're with Jean-Luc Picard. Do I have to say anything more to prove my point?"

We stared, each daring the other to not laugh at it -- for once it came to an impasse. I gestured at the darkness waiting for us inside, the simulation I left behind locked doors to go get her.

"Why is it dark?"

"It's not," I said as the doors closed. {Let your eyes adjust. And don't speak.}

I found her hand as my own eyes adjusted and the blanket of stars overhead became discernable. Very faint stars, as seen from G'naias 6. I saw the glimmer of their light on the grasses and followed the path marked by darkness, by the absence of the glimmer, and the coarse gravel crunched quietly under my feet.

Deanna stayed close. The soft creaking of the night birds peppered the silence. Her hands closed around my thumb and forefinger, the other around my wrist. She let me pull her along and must have been looking at the sky; when we reached the top of a rise I had to hesitate so she wouldn't stumble down the incline. We went down the narrow trail through the dunes, the breeze whispering in the glimmer grass, and reached the sand.

The beaches on G'naias aren't like Terran or Risan beaches. The sand catches any available light, like diamonds do. I led her up the glittering sand. Now that the reflected starlight gave a little more to go by, I could see her face, barely limned with the light, and the cloud of dark curls around it. The metallic threads in her dress surprised me -- the gold gleamed on its own. She stopped walking, leaving her hand around my thumb and forefinger. The lap of the water and distant gleams in an otherwise-dark expanse of lake seemed to be the object of her studies.

Reclaiming my hand, I took my flute from my sleeve where I'd concealed it and began to play. Months of work had gone into this melody. It had come to me in pieces while thinking about different aspects of our relationship; the more I thought about her, the song coalesced. The major elements were set in my memory now but the interludes weren't fixed. Like her, they changed with the mood.

By the end of the song she smiled. As she turned her head slightly, a tear on her cheek caught starlight. {That was beautiful. What's it called?}

I put the flute in an inside pocket of my jacket, took her hand, and kissed her lightly on the lips. {It doesn't have a name. I should name it after you, since it was about you.}

Her arms went around me. I thought about her, and all her facets and moods of which I had never been aware until last year, and stood with her under the stars enjoying the peaceful pleasure of having her body against mine. We parted by mutual assent, unspoken as usual, and continued hand in hand along the water's edge.

We walked to the end of the beach and back, and eventually we found some large rocks near the dunes and sat, together but not touching. I played my flute and found my fingers running through other songs I knew, including ones I hadn't played in months. Even the one for Batai's birth. At the end of the one I'd played at Meribor's wedding, I put the instrument away again and shifted on the rock, leaning back to look at the sky. The birds had ceased their creaking. We were left in silence but for the soft, nearly-inaudible lap of water. The night was cool, but not cold, and she had relaxed so completely that I could actually sense her in my own muted way, through the bond.

"Where is this?" she asked, breaking the silence.

"G'naias. It's a colony now. We beamed down to investigate -- this is the beach we materialized on. It was my third away mission. In daylight, you can't stand on this sand. It blinds you. We came back at night and found it like this. I think we stood there for nearly ten minutes, awestruck at the serenity and beauty of it."

"Have you ever been back there?"

I smiled sadly, thinking of the times I had intended to go back to places and never done so. "There have been too many things occupying my time since then. Other places to go, things to do."

"What made you think of bringing me here?"

"You reminded me of it."

"I did?" Her surprise was palpable.

"How do I feel right now? Is it familiar to you?"

Now her pleasure reached me, outwardly manifested by the smile. I couldn't see her eyes well enough but I knew they had to be glowing with the emotions I could sense. "Yes."

We sat a while longer. Her hand crept up to rub my leg. I'd never been with anyone else who sought physical contact so often. When we were alone she would touch whatever part of me she could reach, and it wasn't sexual -- sensual, perhaps. At first I'd been uncomfortable with it, but she always sensed it and backed off. I gradually found myself expecting it, then anticipating the feather-touch of her fingers, especially at the back of my head. Now it was almost reflex to cover her hand with mine. She doesn't have large hands; I have an impulse to handle them as if they were made of porcelain, but I know she routinely uses them to pummel opponents on the holodeck in her martial arts practice.

My hand over hers, we did as we often do, and simply enjoyed the togetherness. I thought about her on Zanzibar, digging for artifacts at my side and subtly taunting Vash -- I'd been with her long enough to see how subtle she could be. The others hadn't noticed the cold war between the two women. Attuned to Deanna's body language as I'd become, I could read her posture and knew her 'buttons.' Vash pushed too many of them, probably sometimes on purpose to get even for daring to show up on the expedition and fend her off.

I disliked the way I'd felt the same old attraction to Vash, felt like a traitor for it, but Deanna hadn't condemned me. It assured me of what I already knew -- no matter who walked out of my past, my cygne wouldn't be angry at me for it.

While I thought about Zanzibar, about Gary and the expedition and how Deanna had stayed with us regardless of her disinterest in the dig itself, she turned away from me. It was just a turn of the head, but I knew something other than an interest in the opposite end of the beach was afoot. She'd been leaving herself open to me -- it was the only way I could detect her emotions -- and now she was pulling back again, so I couldn't read her at all.

"Deebird?"

It only brought her part of the way back. She smiled, glanced at me, but looked at the ground.

"Mon ami?"

"Je t'aime," she whispered. "I don't want to talk about it here."

"We could go home."

She nodded. I knew it was something serious then, and the way she walked further from me than usual in the corridors on the way to our quarters verified it. I did my best not to make guesses and panic.

I sat down on the couch, hoping, but she sat apart from me with her hands in her lap. A counselor's posture. Usually she kicked off her shoes and curled up next to me when we'd gotten in from a date. I waited, looking her in the eye, and caught myself trying to cross my arms -- I wanted to do something with my hands, reach for her or fidget, and ended up mimicking her posture. She seemed nervous and it was making me nervous, too.

"Do you have any reservations about marrying me?" she asked, her eyes finally meeting mine.

I almost rejected the idea out of hand. But she was serious, and I knew by now that anything a woman thinks is serious, really *is* serious, even if it isn't. "I'm not certain I understand why you're asking this. If I did have reservations I wouldn't have proposed."

"If we didn't have hajira, would you have proposed?"

I leaned an elbow on the back of the couch, turning toward her more. "I don't see how the hypothetical -- "

"Please think about it." The fear in her eyes set me on edge. I wanted to reassure her. She would reject it if I tried.

"We didn't have it in the beginning. It wouldn't make a difference in how I feel, Deanna. I'd be in love with you regardless."

Her eyes fell, and she became too interested in a seam on her skirt, running a fingertip up and down it. "You haven't thought much about the actual ramifications of marriage, I think."

"You mean legally?" How else could she mean? We were already living together.

"There are different types of marriages."

"You're referring to that renewable contractual agreement some paranoid person thought was such a good idea, aren't you?"

She flinched at my tone. "I take it you don't care for the idea."

"I hope you didn't think I would -- that's not marriage, it's a damned business transaction. What the hell are you getting at, Deanna?"

I regretted the outburst immediately. Her posture sagged, and now she averted her eyes and put a hand to her forehead. "It's just that we haven't talked about it. And I've been counseling an engaged couple through their own disagreements over certain aspects -- "

"All right, fine, we need to talk -- but why are you so upset about it? Why this fear?"

"There's a lot to discuss. You proposed so suddenly, I know you didn't think any of it through -- I know you didn't think about having my mother as a mother-in-law, or whether my name will change, or how we would handle property. You have a vineyard, I have whatever my mother would leave -- which, the Fifth House aside, is a lot to think about. And given that she's been married three times and will probably be again, there's a chance she might yet have another child. She's actually mentioned it to me once or twice, and though I don't know how serious she is, I wouldn't put it past her to -- Jean-Luc?" She read my incredulity at the thought of Lwaxana having a baby at her age. I realized then that I needed to research Betazoid biology more thoroughly than I had.

"I shouldn't make assumptions. Sorry. Go on."

"I was trying to point out that it's conceivable, for whatever reason, that I might end up raising my own sibling." How had she gotten to that conclusion? What was she thinking about her mother having children for, anyway?

"Contrary to rumor, I'm not allergic to children. I raised two of them, didn't I?"

She flinched, her eyes going wide. "This isn't Kataan. We have careers."

"I don't understand why this is an issue. We're both reasonable and rational, and there's no reason we can't work out problems as they happen. I can't predict the future any better than you, Deebird. We'll work things out."

She picked at the seam. If she didn't stop this, she'd have the dress unraveled to threads. "I can't be my own counselor, or yours, and I've never been married. I don't have any personal frame of ref -- don't laugh at me!"

"I'm not -- where are you going?"

Some days, that empathy of hers can be a curse -- hiding your reaction from her is impossible. She stormed from the room. At least she didn't leave our quarters, but it was bad enough that she shut herself in the bathroom. It reminded me of the holodeck fiasco some months before, when she'd been humiliated by her own incorrect assumptions and I'd been so useless in comforting her. She normally didn't leave the room in the middle of a conversation -- she must have concurrently come to some realization of her own and felt embarrassment.

I waited but the door didn't open. {I wasn't laughing at you. I was amused by what you were saying, that I had more experience than you at this -- but it's not applicable to our situation. I didn't choose to marry Eline.}

Seconds ticked by, into minutes. The door finally opened. She wore her blue robe, her hair loose over her shoulders, and faced me squarely. "But she was your wife."

"But she was also possibly a product of reality mingling with my own subconscious expectations of what a wife should be like, and there's nothing to prove she wasn't. It took months for me to accept her completely, just the same. We didn't have the same things to negotiate -- as you say, you and I have our careers, a different lifestyle. The only thing I can carry over is the knowledge that arguments and disagreements aren't fatal to a relationship unless we allow them to be. I don't care if there are differences to resolve. I know that you're willing to work with me instead of making demands. The details are beside the point."

"I suppose," she said, toying with the lapel of my black jacket. "That's enough to make me feel fortunate that I accepted the proposal -- that and the fact that you're the handsomest man in the universe, and all the alternate -- "

"All you have to say to convey the point is that I'm with Deanna Troi, she of the impeccable taste and sharp eye. Yes?"

Slyness finally made its appearance, in her eyes and the small smile. "Oui, m'sieur poisson, you are a credit to your mistress."

Taking her hands, I pulled her into the bedroom. "Sit down. We haven't finished the conversation."

She waited on the end of the bed while I changed, hands in her lap, watching me. I'd gotten used to her watching me that way but initially, any hint of her attraction had made me uneasy. Her eyes followed me as I came to sit with her in my nightshirt.

"I don't know why you bother wearing that."

"Because I'd look silly in one of yours, not to mention it wouldn't fit." I sat, one leg folded beneath me, and gave her thick robe a pointed glance.

"We're supposed to talk. I can ogle without following up on it, you can't seem to manage that." She sobered and found another seam to pick at, this time the edge of the coverlet on the bed. "What was Eline like?"

She'd never asked. Not even when I'd been her patient, and working through the transition from Kataan to the ship. "Very patient, and kind. Devoted. She loved Kamin very much, and it showed in everything she did, even when she was upset with him."

"You loved her too. It shows in your face when you talk about her."

It was very hard not to look away as I answered that. "It took time. I was never in love with her, but I did come to love her."

"You don't have to feel guilty about it. It's very common for surviving spouses to feel guilt when they finally move on to new relationships. But I don't think you felt the guilt when you were with. . . ."

"I did, but it wasn't the same. I wasn't engaged to Nella. You shouldn't compare yourself, Deanna."

She shrugged, wincing sheepishly. "I wasn't doing it on purpose. I'm just paranoid, I suppose, looking for things to go wrong between us."

"I'm not going to change my mind. I'm not that insane. You're staying right here with me, and we'll be just as we are now. Unless you're thinking of changing your name?"

That seemed to be what she wanted -- she scooted across the bed and leaned into my arms. "Having two Picards on the bridge might be confusing. But, I'd like to use it socially whenever possible. Mrs. Deanna Picard."

She hadn't said it before. Hearing it sent a shiver down my spine. "It could go the other way, you know."

She giggled, half-climbing into my lap to wrap her arms around my ribs. Her hair smelled of one of her favorite perfumes, a light musk. "Jean-Luc Troi just wouldn't sound right."

"No, it wouldn't. Do you have any reservations about marrying me?"

Her arms tightened. "I only wonder how things will change."

"Is this insecurity I'm hearing?"

"Not. . . exactly. I just know that relationships change after major events, like weddings. . . ."

She made an appealing armful, but not when she sounded this way. The link receded as she spoke. I hummed the song I'd written for her against her scalp until the tension ebbed and I could feel the warmth from her that had taken so long for me to distinguish from my own emotions in my clumsy non-Betazoid fumblings.

"Have you decided when, or where, at least? Engaged is nice, but hardly permanent," I mumbled.

She let go, tilting her head and looking at me as I let her pull away. "I thought about it but can't decide whether it's better to offend my mother or embarrass the non-Betazoid part of the guest list."

I'd thought about it, too. The ill-fated engagement to Wyatt Miller and the turmoil over the ceremony had come to mind often since I'd issued the proposal. "I don't have to tell you how I feel about the idea of walking around naked in front of everyone. I'm quite certain not all will have the same appreciation of my physical perfection as you."

She smiled at it and played with the collar of the nightshirt. "The problem would be too many of them appreciating it too much, I think. Oh, I don't know, Jean-Fish. I knew it would come to this indecision, if I ever did find someone who wanted to marry me. Maybe it would be simpler to just meet up with one of your fellow captains somewhere and get it done that way."

The surrender in her voice bothered me. "What's really bothering you, Deebird? What aren't you telling me?"

Her slump and bowed head boded ill. I caught her hand in mine and kissed it while waiting; her fingers curled around mine as if out of reflex.

"What are you afraid of?"

"You're Captain Picard."

"Oh, merde, don't tell me you're intimidated by rank -- you've never been that, not from the very beginning when you came aboard."

"Have I ever told you about the first time I heard your name?"

I had been about to pull her close again, and stopped, leaving my hand on her arm instead. "There's some significance to that?"

"In a lecture at the Academy. I was second year, and a retired professor came back to lecture. He was quite jovial and full of amusing anecdotes, and recalled a number of his students well -- he quoted you as one of his more difficult ones, and told us how far you'd gotten since you needed a tutor. Trying to get some of the more arrogant ones to accept the need for a tutor, probably."

It was a reminder of something else I had found difficult to accept, the age difference, but I found the fact that the professor had chosen me as an example more distressing. "The point?"

"I've heard about you from the beginning of my career onward, and the reality hasn't disillusioned me much."

"Even after the wrath of Jadavran cuisine?"

She rolled her eyes to look at the ceiling, trying not to laugh aloud. "That came close. Luckily I removed myself to the couch before succumbing to the impulse to light a match."

"I hope you aren't trying to convince me you're indulging in some sort of hero worship."

"Being famous by association could make it difficult," she said faintly, then added, almost like an afterthought, "for the children, if we had any."

Of all the reactions I could have chosen, I had to pick the worst one. "If I were famous, that might be a problem," I snapped.

She looked at the bookshelves, hiding from me. "Your name is in textbooks. Run a search sometime on the Academy coursework library and see how many hits there are on your name. I suspect these days a cadet can't take a class in any of the branches of service without hearing your name once, whether it's a mere mention as in 'first discovered in this sector by this ship under the command of Captain Picard' or a more in-depth treatment of one of your battle tactics, or the articles Beverly published on post-assimilation -- "

"Deanna!" I hated the way she pulled in on herself, shoulders hunched and hands held against her stomach as if shielding herself. "Is this one of your reservations? Are you actually hesitating because of this?"

"No. It was just a thought."

A touch of her chin brought her head up easily enough. I ran my finger along her jaw; she leaned, following my hand as I pulled away. "Why the insecurity, Deebird? Why now?"

She pushed fingertips along the side of her nose as if massaging the beginnings of a headache. "There's so much I don't know about you. There's so much more to know. All I know is from working with you, from the months we've been together, and what's in the computer."

I *almost* reacted badly to it. Catching myself was only made possible by the realization that this was an unusual situation -- she didn't normally do this. She'd been quite content for months to let personal revelations come whenever they may; both of us tended to live in the present.

"What was it that you thought about, that started this?"

"The beach." She paused too long. "It made me think of someone. . . and how much time we spent talking, the things we talked about, and how different it is now. How many years have passed. How many times I thought I'd found someone I would want to spend my life with."

"So torture me now with indecision based on past certainty that never materialized?"

She stared at me, her jaw moved, and I almost managed to dodge. She grabbed a pillow from the unmade bed and slugged me with it. "I had a perfectly good funk brewing, and now you've spoiled it."

"Oh, funk you."

She dealt me another blow across the shoulders with the pillow, but she laughed. "It would serve you right if I went blind," she exclaimed, tossing the pillow to where it belonged and shoving me over.

We ended up in her favorite position, with her head on my shoulder. She draped herself over me and sighed.

"If you really wanted a funk I could have loaned you one of mine," I said at length. "Wouldn't want you to go blind. Though Geordi probably wouldn't mind if you used his old visor, I really wouldn't want it digging into my chest. Ow!"

"What's put you in this mood? Why won't you be serious?"

"Yanking chest hair won't make me any more serious." She loosened her fingers and patted the spot. "Thank you. I just think you're panicking for no good reason. You won't come up with one solid reservation, you keep veering off into this funk of yours, and I don't see why you would be so worried."

Deanna not responding in the middle of a conversation rates fairly high on the list of things you shouldn't ignore, somewhere between black holes and supernovae. I began to wonder if she'd fallen asleep on me. I was about to put out the lights and see if I couldn't manage pulling covers over her when she moved her head.

"I'm afraid you'll have second thoughts. I -- "

"The only thing that will make me have second thoughts would be the continuance of this nonsense! If there's something wrong just tell me." More silence. I guessed, without any hints to suggest it, that I was about to receive an undesirable response to that. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have interrupted you. Can you please tell me, in one sentence, what's wrong?"

She sat up, slid to the end of the bed, stood, and retied her robe. "I wish I had a girlfriend on board I could really talk to. One sentence -- only a man," she muttered, leaving the room.

This reminded me too much of a one-act play Beverly had done once, about miscommunication between genders. And the ensuing argument with her about the level of realism in the lines between the characters -- it turned out that all the women in the audience thought it was accurate and all the men shook their heads in disbelief. I'd thought it a caricature, an exaggeration, that the man misread so many of the woman's statements. Deanna had stuck up for Beverly's side, adding the weight of the counselor's point of view to the mix. Generally, human males were sequential, goal-oriented, and would seek a solution to difficulties presented to them; human females tended to approach things more holistically and would talk things out simply for the sake of venting before deciding what to do about the situation. I'd not really thought about it in such encapsulated terms, but since that discussion so long ago I had had opportunities to recognize it in my interactions with Beverly, and less often with other women. Deanna, perhaps because of her counseling background, had expressed herself in terms I understood, with one or two exceptions such as the aftermath of our encounter with Shelby. Until now.

Of course, I went after Deanna. I found her cross-legged on the couch meditating. Of course.

Retrieving my flute from its case in my top drawer, I sat cross-legged on the floor in front of her and played very, very quietly, closing my eyes and concentrating. Images of her danced in my mind as I played the music they had inspired.

I faltered when she draped her arms over my shoulders, but continued playing, trying not to smile. I had to stop when she blew on the back of my neck and then nibbled on it. "What do you think you're doing? I was trying to compose the latest addition to my masterpiece, Ode to a Swan."

She clung, putting her weight on my back, and rested her chin on my shoulder. "Let me guess, you were adding the Moody Bird Movement?"

"The Funk Fugue."

"I didn't mean to ruin our date. I'm sorry," she murmured. "Shawn has been in and out of my office three times this week, and I've been trying to calm Lieutenant Benninger's pre-wedding nerves. You're supposed to perform the wedding next week, remember?"

"How can I forget? She's approached me four times to change the location. She can't decide whether she wants an observation area so we can see the stars, or the arboretum so there'll be the appearance of being outdoors, or the holodeck."

Deanna's sigh tickled my ear. "You knew I was just having a premature attack of the jitters, didn't you?"

"I thought once you had time to get used to the idea of marriage, you'll be happily sorting out the details."

"I don't know about happily. I may be in a better mood, but it's still not going to be easy."

"Can we finish our date now?"

Her hands slipped down the collar of my shirt. "Before you go blind?"

"That would be such a tragedy, considering I'm engaged to the most beautiful woman in the universe."

"You're good for me, Jean-Fish."

"Yes, without me, you'd fall on the floor."

She pinched chest muscle for it. "Silly fish."

"Do you want to talk it out?" I made the offer soft and serious. She felt warm but heavy on my shoulders. "I know I wasn't very patient at first, but if you really want me to listen. . . ."

"It can wait."

Straightening, I turned, kissing her cheek as she slid off. "You are everything I could ask for in a wife. You have all of Eline's positive qualities, and none of her negative ones."

"Did she have negative ones?"

Patting her thigh, I leaned to kiss her again. "She wasn't real, and she wouldn't have been happy aboard a ship with me. There's no sense in comparisons between the past and what we have, Deanna. You know this."

"I do, but there's nothing like a proposal of marriage to make you think -- especially if you believe marriage is something permanent."

Her cheek was soft against my nose. She sat still, kneeling next to me, and I could feel her opening to me again at last, the warmth of heart fire racing down my skin.

{You need to think in the right direction. Marriage is about the future, Deebird.}

"But I was thinking about the future. The ramifications."

When I moved away far enough to catch her eye, it arrested whatever she might have said after that. "I understand the ramifications. I've thought about them. Whatever happens, I'll never let the property, or your mother, or anything else come between us. We'll work out the details together."

She nodded, smiling, her eyes dancing. "I know."

"But it isn't enough to know it, you have to feel it."

"I do."

"Say that again."

"Why?"

"Practice."

"So we're having the standard Starfleet ceremony? Betazoids don't say 'I do.'" She settled with her head on my thigh, reclining on the floor. "Play some more for me?"

"Of course. Any requests?"

"Ode to a Swan?"

"I'll even add another part, the Serene Cygne Sonata. I hope you don't mind a few stops and starts, I haven't written it yet and I'll have to experiment with it to see what works."

She laughed softly. "Experimenting with me always worked for you before, so why not?"

"Non, ma petite, I never experiment with you." Caressing her face with the backs of my knuckles always made her glow. "Unless you want me to, of course. I still say the maple syrup would have worked."

"It was too sticky. I refuse to let you use something that sticky on me -- you would have yanked out hair with it."

"Not if it was warm enough."

"Another problem -- how warm is warm enough? I can just hear the gossip if I ended up in sickbay with burns in all the wrong areas. Play the song, Jean-Fish."

She ordered out the lights, so we sat in darkness with only the light of stars at warp through the viewports, and I played, fumbling through some of the sequences as I reached the improvised portion. She smiled throughout and crooked an arm around me, pushing her shoulder into my stomach to reach my back.

Setting aside the flute on the coffee table when I finished, I shook her gently. "Deebird?"

Her eyes opened a little. "Hm?"

"I can't pick you up from this angle."

She used me to stabilize herself. When she was standing, I got up myself, wishing my knees didn't feel stiff. She dropped the robe as we reached the bed, revealing one of my old shirts, and crawled right up to hug a pillow.

I draped the covers over her and went to put away my flute. When I got in beside her, she turned to look at me. "I'm sorry, I'm just so tired. . . ."

"Go to sleep, already. You've had a long day. I won't go blind."

"Mmm. Inside out." She rolled on her back, mumbled something unintelligible, and went back under.

I kissed her hair and lay staring at the stars, thinking about weddings and what I knew of them. Performing them had long been one of my duties. Deanna would be a beautiful bride.

A snore interrupted my visualization of the event. The sound clashed with the visions of a delicate and lovely woman in a gown -- it would have been more at home with visions of Tellarites, or possibly Nausicaans. I took her hand and put it on my chest; predictably, she followed it, putting her head on my shoulder and sighing in her sleep.

With her in such close proximity, my thoughts turned to intimacy in all its manifestations. I wasn't terribly surprised when she mumbled, "I thought you were going to let me sleep."

"Why is it you can sleep through any of my emotions but that one?"

"Hajira."

"Very selective, isn't it?"

She muffled a few words into my shirt, then said, "If you can turn me on, you can have me."

"You get blunt when you're this tired."

"Do you care if I'm that blunt?"

"Under some circumstances, no. Where's your 'on' switch?"

"If I didn't feel so wrung out I'd punish you for that. You're not tired, you could at least -- "

"If I were a Betazoid, what would we do differently?"

The question silenced her for a full minute. She pushed herself up, her hair falling in disarray, starlight catching in her eyes. "What?"

"You're Betazoid, I'm not. Remember?"

"The point being?"

"To rephrase slightly, if I were Betazoid and trying to get you interested in sex, what would I do?"

She let her head fall forward, and it was only after her scalp began scrubbing my chin that I realized she was laughing and trying not to. "If you were Betazoid. There's a scenario I would never have imagined. I suppose you'd do pretty much the same thing you do now, thanks to hajira. Emote at me, grope, make provocative suggestions -- though more of them might be projected into my head rather than spoken."

I ignored her elbow resting heavily on my rib cage and began caressing the inside of her arm, where the skin was softest, with just one fingertip. "What about sex? Are you neglecting my education in the ways of Betazoids?"

While she stared across the inches at me, I slipped my hand up the too-large short sleeve of the shirt she wore and found her breast. Her only reaction was to move into it slightly. "I don't believe so. There aren't so many differences as you would think in the actual physical act, just in how we perceive it. Why are you suddenly curious about this?"

"I believe in being well-informed. What about you in particular? Is there anything you would enjoy that I don't know about?"

"You know how to touch me, Jean-Luc. Hajira." She pulled up my nightshirt and ran her hand over my chest in slow circles. "And you knew this would work. Are you still taking requests?"

"I would love to take any request you have, cygne."

"Sweat, and a regenerator."

"Can I shave it, since we're adding a regenerator to the equation anyway?"

"I thought you were *taking* requests."

"Yes. . . . Should I work my way up, or down?"

"By the time you finish interrogations I'll be asleep again. Oh. . . there's a good compromise. . . mmm, such good hands. . . ."


End file.
